


Cravings

by Zilchtastic



Category: Hellsing
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-02
Updated: 2010-03-02
Packaged: 2017-10-07 16:07:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/66771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zilchtastic/pseuds/Zilchtastic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Seras knows that she still thinks like a human. It's obvious any time she's in her Master's presence and her instincts screech and cry with trembling intensity. <i>Run! Hide! Be afraid!</i></p><p>She <i>is</i> afraid. That's the human in her.</p><p>But it never stops the way she craves to be near him with the same sharp intensity she craves blood.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cravings

Seras knows that she still thinks like a human. It's obvious any time she's in her Master's presence and her instincts screech and cry with trembling intensity. _Run! Hide! Be afraid!_

She _is_ afraid. That's the human in her.

But it never stops the way she craves to be near him with the same sharp intensity she craves blood.

Neither craving is like hunger, at least not the way she remembers hunger feeling when she was alive. At least with food-hunger there was the promise of satiety afterward, of fullness and contentment. No, craving blood isn't like being hungry for _food_. It's more like... sex, she thinks, or maybe drugs, although she's had no real personal experience with either. It's the only comparison she can imagine, though, because the feeling thrums through her at all times, even follows her into _dreams_, singing along her nerves like a red-hot line of temptation, purring with want.

_Is it like this for Master all the time?_ she wonders. _Or does it ever get better?_

Then again, considering her Master's lust for violence-- and _lust_ really is the only word that fits-- maybe it only gets _worse_.

"Does it ever get better?" she dares ask him one night, because even though she doubts she'll get a straight answer, it can't hurt to try, can it?

Alucard doesn't answer right away, nor does he ask her what she means. Probably he can hear every quavering thought that drifts into her brain, so clarifying would just be redundant.

It's a cold night; the air smells like woodsmoke and distant snow. Seras doesn't shiver-- she can tell it's icy out, but though she waits for it the air never starts to bite. _I'll never be cold again_ she thinks, and is surprised by how mournful the realization is. _Not on the outside, anyway._

Her Master gives a low chuckle, which could mean he's just heard her thought or could be just private amusement. "Better?" he says, finally, and as always the low throb of his voice makes something deep inside Seras ache. She craves her Master like a flower craves sun and earth and rain. He's _everything_, and sometimes, that frightens her.

Sometimes it frightens her that it doesn't frighten her _enough_.

"You know what I mean." He's baiting her, she just knows it.

His grin splits his face-- mocking, sardonic. "I suppose it depends on your definition of 'better'."

She wants to stomp her foot, or maybe yell. Talking to him isn't like having a real conversation _at all_. "Master! Please stop being obtuse."

He laughs at that, rumbling and amused, and it infuriates her even as it makes something warm and pleased well up from the pit of her stomach.

He eyes her over the rims of his sunglasses. His grin is still wide, the sharp teeth of a wolf bared more as threat than laughter. "You had a choice, police girl. You made it."

"I, I _know_ that--"

He turns away. Dead leaves crunch with finality under his heavy boots. "Humans crave such complicated things. Be glad your needs are simple now."

Blood. Death. Is that all she has?

Alucard fades into the shadows, but his voice drifts back to her ears. He sounds vaguely annoyed now, as if teasing her has abruptly stopped being fun. "You still have eyes, police girl. Go read a book." Then he's gone, absorbed into the darkness that the pale moonlight can't penetrate.

Seras isn't cold, but she imagines that the air has grown chillier nevertheless, now that her Master's presence is just a fading buzz. _Read a--?_

Well, it's true. She supposes she could. Why not? There's nothing that says a vampire can't curl up with a good book. Or maybe a movie, she thinks. A midnight matinee. She can... she can still _do_ things. Blood doesn't have to be _everything_.

She hears laughter in her mind as she trudges back to the mansion, and it's mocking as always. That doesn't stop it from warming her all the way through.


End file.
